These are 3-year grants aimed at hiring young researchers, which the ICM has now been able to access for the first time thanks to the acquisition, last year, of the Severo Ochoa Excellence Award.
Lucía Pita, Francisco Cornejo and Viena Puigcorbé have obtained one of the prestigious Junior Leader "la Caixa" fellowships to join the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM). These are 3-year grants aimed at hiring young researchers with a promising career with which the bank entity seeks to train the future scientific leaders of Spain and Portugal.
This is the first time that the ICM participates in this programme thanks to the acquisition, last year, of the Severo Ochoa Excellence Award. The accreditation has also made it possible to fund a series of training sessions aimed at obtaining these scholarships from which all candidates have been able to benefit.
In total, in this edition, open to more than 66 entities qualified as “excellent”, 30 scholarships have been offered within the framework of the Junior Leader programme. Of these, 3 will materialise as contracts with the ICM, which confirms the Institute's potential to attract research talent.
The first beneficiary of this programme is Lucía Pita, who will study the molecular mechanisms involved in the interaction between species, microorganisms and the marine environment. According to the researcher, this knowledge could contribute to the development of therapies against diseases such as cancer.
Pita, who received his PhD from the University of Barcelona, has been working at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel (Germany), where she carried out a postdoc thanks to an Alexander von Humboldt grant. At the ICM she will work with Marta Ribes, Rafel Simó and their group, which specialises in the study of the interactions between marine biogeochemistry, the atmosphere and climate.
The second beneficiary is Francisco Cornejo. He will lead the UCYNELLE project, which will explore, from an evolutionary point of view, the symbiotic relationship between certain microscopic marine algae and a group of nitrogen-fixing bacteria that might be used as a model to understand the origin of organelles in the eukaryotic cell.
Within the framework of this project, Cornejo will collaborate also with Rafel Simó to delve into the chemical aspects of the communication between these symbionts. Francisco Cornejo received his PhD at the ICM and until now has been working at the University of California Santa Cruz (USA) and at the Station Biologique of Roscoff (France) thanks to a Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship, the most prestigious postdoctoral fellowships of the European Commission.
Finally, Viena Puigcorbé will lead the BACRAD Project, which will study the microbial communities that develop in marine particles with the aim of understanding their impact on the marine carbon cycle and, specifically, on the remineralisation of organic carbon.
Within the framework of this project, Puigcorbé, who received his PhD in 2016 and until now has been working at the Centre for Marine Ecosystems Research at Edith Cowan University (Australia), will work closely with the ICM researcher Josep M Gasol, specialised in the study of marine microorganisms ecological and functional role
A consequence of excellence
The Junior Leader is one of the most competitive programme in the postdoctoral career. Of the 353 applications received in 2021, only 30 researchers, i.e. less than 10%, will be able to take part in this programme whose main objective is to promote high quality and innovative research and support the best scientific talent.
The beneficiaries of these fellowships are offered an attractive and competitive environment to carry out excellent research. Among all the entities participating in the call are the centres and units accredited with the Severo Ochoa or María de Maeztu Excellence Awards, as well as the Carlos III Health Research Institutes, and the Portuguese R&D units classified as "excellent" by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia de Portugal.